Seventy Hours

In the last few months, Narayana Murthy found himself in hot water because he suggested that people must work seventy hours a week and that India demands this level of dedication to grow and become a developed country. When the criticism poured in, his wife, Sudha Murthy, jumped into the bull’s ring and insisted her husband worked eighty to ninety hours a week when setting up Infosys. A few experts critiqued the seventy-hour benchmark, and others supported it. The last to do so is Bhavesh Agarwal (spelling?), the founder of Ola Cabs.

Infosys has received a tax notice for arrears amounting to Rs. 32,000 crores, or almost 4 billion USD, making me doubt the ‘benefit of the nation’ hypothesis.

I will not quote all the references I collected for this brief article but will quote a few lessons. First, most experts only recommend working up to 48 hours weekly unless there is a specific demand (e.g., the armed forces).

Long work hours can exacerbate health issues, such as:

1. Metabolic diseases. People who work more than 55 hours a week have a greater risk of heart disease.
2. Burnout.
3. Depression and anxiety.
4. An increase in bad habits, like an increased usage of painkillers and consumption of junk food.

If you read the articles, you can expand the list, but I will stop to avoid creating a listicle for the sake of making a listicle.

I want to analyze the seventy-hour proposal more deeply and link it to our available hours in a day. When I began my career, I worked six days a week, and Sundays ended before I knew they started. To make the analysis simple in mathematical terms, I will assume a person works seventy-two hours a week if they work six days or seventy hours a week if they work five days.

The two translate into twelve or fourteen hours a day, depending on whether you assume a six-day or five-day week. Traffic has worsened since I began my career, so a person commutes two hours daily.

Also, assuming a person sleeps six hours a day is sub-optimal. Doctors and sleep experts recommend seven to eight hours of sleep daily.

The calculations thus far add up to twenty-two hours daily for the five-day week and twenty hours daily for the six-day week. A person then has two hours (or four hours) daily for their daily ablutions, dinner, and time with family or themselves.

Such demands are unrealistic. I will not go further!

If Narayana Murthy wished to develop the nation, then he’d:

Ensure Infosys pays all taxes on time.

Ensure they pay this tax demand instead of lobbying and begging for forgiveness and a waiver.

His attitude is hypocritical and unacceptable and ignores a straightforward reality: employees work for themselves, their families, their bosses, and the company in this order. I wonder if many 'work for the nation.'

Links

• https://www.nivati.com/blog/overworking-the-effects-on-mental-health#:~:text=Overworking%20leads%20to%20burnout%E2%80%94which,Emotional%20exhaustion
• https://www.passporthealthusa.com/employer-solutions/blog/2019-2-overworking-affect-physical-and-mental-health/
• https://health.clevelandclinic.org/effects-of-working-too-much
• https://www.activtrak.com/blog/consequences-of-overworking-employees/
• https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-enjoy-work
• https://zenopa.com/career-advice/the-value-of-enjoying-your-work/
• https://timetastic.co.uk/blog/how-to-enjoy-work/
• https://www.india-briefing.com/doing-business-guide/india/human-resources-and-payroll/labor-law#:~:text=Working%20hours,-The%20working%20day&text=An%20adult%20(over%2018%20years,should%20not%20exceed%2010%C2%BD%20hours.
• https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours
• https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment-rights-and-conditions/hours-of-work/working-hours/
• https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/govt-may-decide-on-infosys-rs-32000-crore-tax-at-sep-9-gst-meet-foreign-airlines-too-keep-fingers-crossed/articleshow/112733873.cms?from=mdr